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8 comments:
Because people often want to lie to themselves, and protect their own butts?
Numbers only count when you're trying to sell something, prove something, attract something. They don't matter to God, so why should they matter to us?? (unless it's 3, 7, 12, 40)
So if zero people believed in Him, would that not matter to God? (I'm not being facetious.) OTOH Scripture says (in Philippians) that God wants "all" to repent and believe (that is, that he is "not willing" that any should perish). All is a number (though I'm not sure what it is).
"Numbers" is even a book in the Bible!
Could the question then become "What numbers are important?"
Those Paula listed -- plus 666?
I think we are afraid to be angry with God or blame him for things that we don't understand or don't like... Not that we'd be right if we did, but I think God has big sholders and sometimes we need to say we aren't happy about something. Or ask why - when we are working so hard and trying to do his will - do we keep losing people. The problem with asking is that God usually answers.
Or, perhaps we are afraid of what that will say about us. Perhaps "numbers" are down because we are not following God's will. It is easier to say the numbers don't matter then to admit that, perhaps, we are on the wrong path and, if we were on the right one, God would bless us.
Numbers are not everything (don't tell my CA colleagues I just said that) - and sometimes they are up (in the short term) for various reasons that are totally unrelated to God. However, they are an indicator, and an easy one to measure. If you were in a business and the number of people coming through your door kept going down, you'd think, maybe you were doing something wrong. You wouldn't say - well that doesn't matter, because the people we've served in the past are happy and really, we are all about quality not quantity...
No, church or other religious entities are not businesses, but we need to be honest about what we are doing if we aren't attracting people to God.
I of course am thinking of times when possibly we simply need to consider down-to-earth factors such as poor management, communication or planning and stop trying to believe that everything is exactly as God wants it -- or anything dark and mysterious such as God punishing us or Satan opposing us. But when such people answer to a Christian board, sometimes it's useful to put the God-spin on things.
Here's what plunge.mindsay.com said to this at reppepper.mindsay.com:
I think that numbers are important. They're discussed throughout scripture fairly often: we're told that 3000 were saved on the day of pentecost, we're told the group of new believers had their numbers added to daily, we're told the exact numbers often throughout the old testament. I think the problem is that we have allowed them to be all that we exam as criteria for God's blessing. Your comment about the Mormons is right on the money: they're experiencing great growth, but we would argue that it is not God blessing them, rather the results of clever recruitment tactics, and the blinding work of the evil one.
I think there is danger is wanting nothing but a large ministry, but I also think there is danger and falsehood in the discussions that move around the concept of having a smaller group that you're more able to pour your life into and see actual life-transformation. I've been around a lot of small groups and quite honestly, many of them are no better than the large churches they despise as far as the prevelance of gossip, the cold-heartedness, and the lack of love for each other.
What I want is to see as many people as possible come into a life-giving, life-transforming, bondage-breaking relationship with the one who died for them. I want huge numbers, and huge fruit, complete transformation, and a to serve a huge God.
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"right on the money" ha ha
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